


my body is an orphanage (we take everyone in)

by mitzvahmelting



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Justice League - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Asexuality, Dick Grayson is too pure for this world, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father-Son Relationship, Other, all sex is consensual but not necessarily pleasurable for both parties, bruce sleeps around a lot and no one knows he's not that into it, parasocial relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 14:05:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12683415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mitzvahmelting/pseuds/mitzvahmelting
Summary: He can stand in a room with the League members and receive surreptitious glances from each one of them individually, each one of them trying to communicate with the intensity of their eyes some sort of camaraderie with Bruce,us against the world,which would be funny, would be far less bitter and ironic, if he wasn’t so desperate to affirm with each of them in turn,yes, you are my friend,for better or for worse.So he lets them have sex with him because it seems like that means a lot to them.





	my body is an orphanage (we take everyone in)

**Author's Note:**

> i've been working on this for sooooo long.
> 
> title is from Fall Out Boy's "27". basically the whole fic was inspired by that line. "27" is one of the many Fall Out Boy songs i enjoy belting whenever i'm in an empty house.

People want him.

It’s not a boastful claim, it’s not some sort of chest-thumping masculine ideal. It’s just the way things are; the way people treat him. Ghosts orbiting around him like planets; he’s the center of their universe.

Sex in dark alcoves, fingers touching his skin, smiles with sinister undertones, _beware, beware, little red riding hood,_ but he doesn’t know any better.

 

_il faut se méfier, petit chaperon rouge,_

He remembers coming home from a date at boarding school.  It felt like the sunbeam-suspended dust hanging in the air of his shared bedroom would attach to his slick-sticky skin where her body had been. And then Ollie saw the places along his neck where her mouth had drawn blood to the surface. Ollie gave him two thumbs up and a grin.

Over the next few hours he picked long strands of red hair out of the knit stitches of his sweater. Could still smell the cloying scent of her lavender air freshener, could still feel his underwear catching-sticking to him. Kept seeing her small white breasts floating disembodied in his mind’s eye, soft and strange. She’d told him to suck on them. He can remember how they felt in his mouth.

Ollie pestering him with questions that he ignored because he felt absent.

The feeling wasn’t entirely new.

Like family portraits. Like the photographer combing his hair with a metal row of teeth spritzed with hair spray.  Taking his chin in hand and adjusting him like a doll, “hold, just like that.” Telling him to smile wider for the camera flashbulb while it makes his eyes bleed color into the film negative.

People always touched him. “Thomas and Martha’s beautiful boy.” Wrinkled fingers adorned with jeweled rings.

Decades later, spandex peeled down over his rear, the door to the Watchtower gym locked with security clearance code silver. Sweat… at the tops of his thighs, down the small of his back, at his hairline, dripping into his eyes. The satisfied grumble of lust as the Kryptonian nudges his nose against Bruce’s intimate parts.

Penetration; surreal as always. Smooth with lubricant, cool with Clark’s alien room-temperature skin, blue-blooded, muted squelching sounds like galoshes in mud. Clark’s lips touching his spine.  Sweat dripping onto the vinyl covering of the gym mats, tiny puddles of saltwater.

“I love you,” whispers Clark, achingly earnest, “I love you, I love you…”

“…hh,” replies Bruce.

Cheeks flushed, body sore, open, loose. The League meeting begins, and Bruce still feels… wet. Oliver’s knowing thumbs-up from across the round table.

Two weeks pass. At a boardroom showdown between Wayne Enterprises and Queen Industries directors, Ollie excuses himself from the meeting room, and Bruce follows in order to escape – escape the boredom, the thoughtful glances from Lucius wondering if Bruce has some sort of opinion. No comment. He doesn’t care – Ollie’s a good man, Queen Industries is a good company, it’s fine, he doesn’t care.

Ollie locks the door to Bruce’s office behind them and immediately falls to his knees, pulling the zipper down on Bruce’s trousers.  Doesn’t ask.  Who would turn down a blowjob? Who would?

Bruce doesn’t care. He has no opinion.  Ollie’s a good man.

Kissing Bruce’s erection gently, softly. More care in his movements than kisses on the mouth. Making love to Bruce’s masculinity.  Bruce observes passively, feeling like an alien, an anthropologist.

It’s not Ollie’s fault Bruce is like this. And Ollie is Bruce’s good friend despite Bruce’s inability to construct passionate emotions about anything other than the Mission. If this is how Bruce can contribute to their friendship, he certainly doesn’t mind.

Besides, Ollie’s not the only one.

It’s not like the Wayne Foundation patrons, the local celebrities, the rogues, or the League members are any different.

A woman in an emerald-encrusted gown glittering under the chandelier light – like a chandelier herself. Long, polished fingernails creeping up his silk-sewn tie like a large spider. Each nail pressing slightly against his chest. Settling around the knot, “Come with me, Mr. Wayne.”

The strange outline of her body as she perches over him, as she rolls latex over his erection.  He isn’t worried about her seeing his scars and injuries; he knows already, just from the way she’s looking at him, that there will be no need for him to remove the rest of his clothes.

Selina purring against his bicep. Challenging him in hand-to-hand and when she wins she straddles him on an empty Gotham rooftop, digging lycra pelvic bones against the codpiece. It’s raining. She likes it when it rains, the slip-slide of his fingers against the catsuit.

The taste of Diana on his tongue, wet, sweet, bitter, syrupy, rich, punctuated by the texture of stray hairs.

He sees it as work. He sees it as his only real form of social interaction. He sees it as the cost of being who he is, what he is.  His body is a tool, for him to use. For others to use, sometimes.

And even beyond the sex, there’s everyone staring directly into Bruce’s eyes with intensity, with predatory interest. Parasocial affection.

Joker and Clark and Two-Face and Selina and Alfred and Lucius and Bane and Hugo Strange

And Leslie and Ivy and Diana and Ra’s and Jason Blood

And Talia and Crane and Penguin and Hal and Ollie

And everyone else besides, saying “I know you. I know you, better than anyone else.”

 

When he returned for the first time from his training abroad, having completed his adolescence far from the public eye, he shouldn’t have been surprised when the women unzipped Bruce Wayne’s tailored-tight dress pants, touched his genitals, caught skin underneath manicured fingernails, rested their weight in his lap, _at every event he attends, he always ends up with someone else’s saliva in his mouth_.  He allows it, because it doesn’t matter to him nearly as much as it matters to them.  He doesn’t mind, if that’s what they want. He can do that.

It’s even more difficult with the League because they are all so testosterone-fueled, let alone their good looks, good virtues, and the intense desire they all share to _fix things._ Bruce Wayne is something to _fix._ No one can look at him or Batman and miss the fact that something is _broken._

They’re like moths to a flame. Planets orbiting the sun.  Each cliché casts him in the role of fire, but he rather more acutely feels as if Medusa looked into his eyes and saw he was already stone.

Tactics, training, receiving love confessions in the liminal spaces by the emergency stairwells.

“Can I kiss you?” “If you want to.”

Eventually they give up when they realize Batman won’t give them the affirmation they need.  League members trade knowing glances in the cafeteria when Power Girl brings him an avocado-yogurt smoothie prepared especially for him, or when Kyle Rayner asks permission to sketch his portrait. His colleagues joke; they say it’s a rite of passage.  To be discussed with the same vapidity as office gossip.

He can stand in a room with the League members and receive surreptitious glances from each one of them individually, each one of them trying to communicate with the intensity of their eyes some sort of camaraderie with Bruce, _us against the world,_ which would be funny, would be far less bitter and ironic, if he wasn’t so desperate to affirm with each of them in turn, _yes, you are my friend,_ for better or for worse.

So he lets them have sex with him because it seems like that means a lot to them.

And because it’s all he has time for.

He’s so concerned with the Mission that he doesn’t have room in his mind to spare for thinking of creative, platonic ways to preserve his friendships, this greenhouse of naked men and women who always need water or sunlight or _attention_ while he’s busy trying to fulfill his Mission, trying to keep the parents of young children safe.

Sometimes it doesn’t even have to do with sex.

Sometimes he returns to his Watchtower quarters to find Diana lying fully-clothed atop his bed, just looking to hold his hand for a while. Her dark hair splayed feathery over his pillow, her breathing slow and even, the lights still off but for the muted glow of the floodlights. She pulls him down to lay next to her.  She removes the gauntlet glove and touches the soft skin of his palm. “Sometimes,” she says, “you and I need quiet time.”

Or when Ollie and Dinah invite him to their apartment for dinner, and despite his expectations they end up with a few plates of curry stood on tray tables in front of the television, fully clothed, and no one is touching Bruce, and Dinah remarks from the corner seat before the movie begins, “Sometimes, it’s just nice to spend time with you.”

Or when Clark leads Bruce to one of the back rooms in the javelin on the flight home from sector 004, shutting the door to the small bedroom behind them before carefully pulling down Bruce’s cowl and running fingers gently, gently through his hair, soft. And Clark’s eyes shine, and he sighs, and he says, “Sometimes I just need to see you.”

Or when Hal settles back against the wall of the supply closet, debauched, hair mussed and lips swollen. And he gives Bruce this satisfied, genuine, earnest smile, and whispers, “Sometimes, Bats… you and I just need some _release,”_ before reaching out and stroking a thumb across the back of Bruce’s hand.

 

They drink toasts one night after a fierce battle won. Bruce would retreat to Gotham under normal circumstances, but this time Clark has grabbed his arm and won’t let go.  He says Bruce “ought to stay, really,” and Bruce defers to Clark’s judgement on things like this, because Bruce isn’t sure how to maintain social stability on the team but to follow Clark’s lead and

The League gets a bit drunk. Someone is good-naturedly teasing about Batman’s reputation in the sack.

Hypothesizing a list of the League members he’s fucked, specifying that “non-penetrative sex doesn’t count, because that list would take too long.”

They think it’s an accomplishment that he gets around so much. They think it’s a mark of celebrity, or worthiness, that everyone is drawn to him.

This conversation is a problem.  This conversation has his most sensitive friends on edge.  Underneath the raucous façade, his every colleague is listening closely to the names their cohorts suggest. Clark’s hand is placed possessively on Bruce’s shoulder.  Power Girl is watching that hand. 

Brushing off the contact, Bruce starts moving towards the zeta chamber. He is done here. There is work in Gotham.

In a semi-related conversation, the younger members start taking nominations for who has “the best ass” in the League. “Why did we never form an HR department?” J’onn asks aloud, shaking his head fondly.

The mood is light and raunchy and goofy.  Bruce has almost left the room. He is passing the younger members.

Zatanna remarks loud enough to gather the attention of the group that “obviously you have to consider Nightwing’s _assets_ ” and

in a move that he will come to regret for the rest of his adult life

Bruce slaps her

Across the jaw

With the gauntlet.

With that, the symbiosis he’d been cultivating for his entire life stutters and stops.

 

They lock him in his Watchtower quarters, temporarily.  He stands alone in the room and watches the automatic door slide shut, listening peripherally to the hum of voices fussing over the teenage magician. Zatanna had taken the blow without countering.  Who would anticipate an unprovoked attack from an ally? She’d been knocked prone.  Bruce had been escorted out of the room before she’d recovered from the shock.  She might be angry with him.  More likely, she may just be confused.

He feels, through the shut door, tendrils of psychic energy reaching out to him.  Per procedure under friendly fire, J’onn is trying to read his mind. 

 _Bruce,_ whispers the Martian, _I understand that you are feeling trapped, anxious, and cornered. Soon you will be allowed time to process your turmoil.  But, right now, it is in your best interest to allow me to perform a cursory investigation of your psyche. You have nothing to hide from me, Bruce. I only need ensure that you are not under another’s influence; I will not pry. Do you understand?_

Bruce, in the last few moments, has not had time to calculate the best course of action for Batman.  His instincts, though, advise him to assuage his teammates’ fears of mind control as quickly as possible.

With some difficulty, he tries to permit J’onn entrance. The Martian projects calm into Bruce’s mind the way a surgeon gives his patient anaesthetic.  The room around him is still dark, and safe. He sits at the edge of the bed as the telepath filters through his memories, feeling exposed, but ultimately unbothered. The sensation itself is strangely familiar, allowing a violation of personal boundaries for the greater good.

 _I am finished now, thank you for your cooperation._ The presence withdraws. Bruce exhales heavily, and feels the shock crawl back up his throat.

He knows they are going to ask him, “Why did you attack your ally without any provocation?”

On some level, he knows the answer. He knows where this line of questioning will lead.  He doesn’t want to go there; he doesn’t want to go through a paradigm shift as dramatic as the one he can feel approaching him like a threatening dark cloud.  He isn’t ready for that kind of change.

He wants to rewind the past ten minutes and go back to the way things were.

A knock on the door. “B? It’s me,” says the voice, “Let me in.”  Bruce still doesn’t know who is behind the door.  Everyone and their mother thinks they’re intimate with him on that level, that they can just give a quiet “it’s me,” and he’ll immediately know exactly with whom he is speaking.

Still, he gives the nonverbal signal that opens the door, and feels an overwhelming wave of gratefulness when Nightwing enters the room.

“Security Code: Blue,” says the young man, before peeling away his mask and whispering “Bruce,” into the open space between them.

Bruce removes the cowl, nods in Dick’s direction without saying anything. He doesn’t need to say anything. Dick probably already knows how grateful Bruce is that Dick hasn’t abandoned him over just one out-of-character action.

“So what was that?” asks Dick.

“A mistake,” Bruce says softly, “for which I will profusely apologize as soon as I’m given the opportunity.”

It softens the blow a bit when Dick makes an effort to hide how surprised he is. “Right,” he says, “well, at least you’ve gotten that far on your own.” He moves then to sit next to Bruce on the bed, but Bruce shifts to maintain the space between them.

“Why do you say that?”

“You don’t have the best track record with interpersonal communication, Bruce.”

Bruce frowns, and the paradigm shift is already affecting him. His fingers flinching within the gauntlet gloves as if to form fists. “Is that true, though?” he asks, “Is it true, that I’m bad with people?” _Is it true that I’m aloof, and careless about the feelings of others? Or is that just what others perceive me to be?_

“Well, you _did_ just hit Zatanna for no reason.”

Bruce grimaces, “Point taken.”

“So what set you off?” asks Dick, moving the conversation along. “J’onn said it wasn’t mind control, but he also said you weren’t having some kind of,” he swallows, “episode.”

Dick is referring to the sorts of altered mental states that result from things _other_ than mind control.

“So,” concludes Dick, “you must have had a reason.”

“That’s very generous of you to assume.”

Dick laughs, self-deprecating. “That’s me,” he says, “loyal son to a fault.”  That’s a sentence that agitates them both even more. But Dick presses on; he nudges Bruce’s knee and asks again, “So what was it that set you off?”

What, indeed?  The fact that she sexualized his adult son? Is he that prudish? Or, rather, was it the fact that she began a chain of events that would no doubt result in Nightwing becoming the new… the new…

Bruce is rubbing his forehead as if to alleviate the growing headache left in the wake of J’onn’s investigation. The room is so quiet that he can hear the machinery of the watchtower humming, and Dick’s breathing, and the creak of the oft-used mattress underneath them at every shift of weight.

“She sexualized you,” he says finally.

“She… wait, _Zatanna_ did? What’d she—”

“She said something about your butt.”

Dick is grinning, lopsided and goofy.  A Robin smile. “Wow.”

The nausea is coming in waves.

“And you…” Dick’s smile turns, and he peers at Bruce sidelong. “What, you were defending my honor?”

Bruce is staring at nothing on the floor, and his whole body feels numb, and he says, “I suppose.”

“A little hypocritical, don’t you think?” pries Dick, knowingly.

Bruce chokes out, “…because I’m already the League slut?”

Dick frowns. “I didn’t say that.”  But Bruce can’t breathe, can’t hear him, and then Dick is gripping his shoulder with all the force of rueful pleading, “Bruce, I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t… have to.”

And maybe this is a conversation Bruce should have had with Dick a long time ago.

Dick still has a grip on his shoulder, and he seems about to continue speaking, pursue the denial to its end, when Bruce pushes his hand aside. “No,” Bruce interrupts, “let me speak.  There’s something I need to tell you.”

Emotionally, Bruce is veering dangerously close to a meltdown. What he should do is ask Dick for patience, for a couple minutes’ rest from the conversation so Bruce can practice his breathing exercises and keep from overexerting himself.  But there’s this heavy weight of parental responsibility that’s hanging over Bruce’s head, spurring an urgency more important than Bruce’s emotional state.  So he stands up off of the bed, and he faces the wall to collect himself, before turning to face his son.

Dick is patient, and quiet, and attentive.

“I know,” begins Bruce, “that you’ve always been under a sort of pressure to be like me, to be like Batman. And I know that we’ve… dealt with parts of that issue. When you created the Nightwing identity. When you… left home. But there’s still a lot we have in common. There’s still a lot of ways you’re following in my footsteps.”

Dick nods, wary, and he doesn’t interrupt, even though there are objections shining in his eyes.

Bruce steps forward and grips Dick’s shoulders, looking deep into his eyes. “You should _never_ feel like you have to share your body for the sake of the Mission.”

It’s almost like… Dick flinches, and he’s looking at Bruce, speechless.

Bruce continues, his voice tremulous, a hand cupping Dick’s cheek. “I never wanted that for you. You are so much better than that, Dick.”

Nothing is said, for a moment. Dick’s eyes dart back and forth, searching Bruce’s face for… something.  And then he’s pushing Bruce away, and standing up, and Bruce holds his breath, because he sees the mirthless smile on Dick’s face, that utter disbelief, and he knows that Dick is going to start saying things that feel like knives because that’s what happens, what always happens, when Dick looks like this.

“When I was growing up,” says Dick, his voice fast and forceful and semi-automatic, “in those months before Robin, I think at least… at least 80% of the time I spent with you, there was a woman in the room.  Or, not always a woman, but someone you were sleeping with. And I didn’t get, at the time, why I had to fight with them for attention, when they were only there for two or three days.  And I remember wondering if you would start swapping out orphans the way you swapped sexual partners.”

It pierces Bruce’s chest, physically painful, making it difficult to breathe.

Dick crosses his arms in front of his body like a self-comfort gesture and takes a deep breath. “Later, when I knew who you really were… it was so strange to me, to watch you acting so sleazy at the galas and events we attended.  And you said it was for the Mission. It was to keep people from making the connection between Brucie Wayne and Batman.”

“I know,” interjects Bruce, “and I—”

“I’m not finished,” Dick cuts him off, his jaw tight, the muscles in his neck contracting. “Then you started sleeping with League members. And friends, too, people you didn’t use the Brucie act with. And I grew up, okay? I learned to just accept that… that maybe the Brucie thing was a rationalization, and you just, I don’t know, you liked sex! Which is fine! It’s totally fine to…”

Bruce shudders, reflexively.

Dick says to him, almost accusatorily, “You can’t tell me there’s a rational explanation for sleeping with the League. It’s just sex, right? You just like sex. Please tell me it’s just sex.”

The world spinning around him, Bruce carefully sits down on the edge of the bed, and rubs his forehead to alleviate the dizziness. “It’s not—” he begins to say, but the words don’t quite form in his head. “It builds trust…” he tries to explain.

“Oh my God.” Dick just looks at him flatly. “Do you even enjoy it?”

Bruce shakes his head ambiguously, without actually meeting Dick’s eyes. “I don’t know,” he mumbles.

“Oh my God,” Dick says again.  He turns and puts his palms against the metal door of the room, and then he rests his forehead against them, shutting his eyes. In disbelief, or frustration, or just… because he needs to process this. “Oh my God,” he says again, his voice lilting upwards almost into a laugh, but he doesn’t actually laugh, and he just stands there with his head against the wall for some time, breathing.

Bruce feels cornered, again, but then again, it isn’t the first time he’s felt so cornered. And he’s trying not to think. _Do you even enjoy it?_ If he tries to answer that question, he’ll end up dwelling on every uncomfortable, sticky sensation, the prickling at the back of his neck every time they undermine his authority on a League mission, the feeling of security in another man’s arms, the feeling that… at least this is an aspect of his relationships with other people that he can _control._

Minutes pass in silence. Eventually, Dick moves away from the wall. He looks at Bruce, shakes his head again, and sits beside Bruce on the edge of the bed, a barrier of space between them.  “Remember when I was nine—” he begins to say, but then his throat closes up, and he goes silent for another moment as he tries to control himself.

Bruce shrugs. “Lots of things happened when you were nine; I don’t remember all of them.”

Dick only dignifies that with half of a laugh, and then, “Remember when I was nine, and I saw you having a nightmare for the first time?”

The memory of it… he doesn’t remember the nightmare itself, but the terror of it, and waking up to the eminently kind face of the little boy, so serious and concerned, and sympathetic. Bruce can’t speak; he gives only an affirmative hum, and shuts his eyes.

“You said, you know, ‘it’s fine, I’m fine, go back to your room, I’m going back to sleep…’ and you explained that this happened often and it was just something you dealt with. And I was _appalled._ ”

Bruce feels a smile form on his lips unconsciously. “ _This_ I remember.”

Dick grins, and nudges Bruce with his elbow. “Right? Like, you can’t just go back to sleep, I said, that’s just _wrong._ That’s just _not_ what you’re supposed to do. When you have a nightmare, you’re not supposed to stay alone and force yourself to fall back asleep! You get up, and you hold your teddy bear, and you go ask Mom for hot chocolate. That’s just what you _do._ I could not _believe_ that you didn’t know this.”

Bruce remembers the little boy stubbornly pushing the stuffed elephant—Elinor—into Bruce’s arms, like a doctor dispensing medicine to an unwilling patient.

“This is like that,” Dick explains. “That’s what this conversation feels like.  Like, you’ve been torturing yourself for years, Bruce, you’re doing something _wrong_ and I just… can’t fathom it.”

Bruce sighs. “I’m not doing anything wrong, Dick, I’m just—”

“No, you are. You are.” Dick looks directly at him, just as urgently as that nine year old boy. “If you don’t want to have sex, you should not be having sex. Period. End of story.”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“No, it’s not, Bruce, and let me tell you why.” Dick lowers his voice, and points to the door of the room. “Those people out there? They _love_ you, they love you more than life itself. And it would just kill them to know that they have _ever_ made you feel uncomfortable in that way.”

His throat burns, and he frowns, and Dick is right, and Bruce… swipes a hand across his face, to wipe away the tears, and he nods.

Dick asks, so quietly, “Why do you even do it?”

“It makes them happy,” Bruce chokes out, “it makes them feel intimate. I don’t know how to…”

“They love you more than they love sex, Bruce.”

Bruce nods again, and the regret swells in his chest, like something physical filling his lungs. “I know,” he whispers, “I’m sorry.”

It was just something that Bruce _did_ , it was just _part of him_. Clandestine adventures with lovers to keep in their good graces, summer afternoons with sticky fingers and soiled sheets, and long, hot showers to scrub himself… clean. To make himself feel… like himself again.

Dick moves closer, and hugs him close, tight embrace. And Bruce rests his forehead against his grown son’s shoulder, too close to breaking down entirely with emotion, as Dick rubs his back between his shoulders, and whispers “I love you, too, no matter what,” in a voice so quiet it’s almost inaudible.

“…more than I deserve,” Bruce responds, after a moment, in the small space of their embrace. “I’m a terrible parent to you.”

“Yeah…” says Dick, teasingly, “I’m the real parent, here.”  And Bruce swats him in the head as Dick laughs, and laughs, and tightens his arms.

 

Eventually, they part. Bruce washes his face with cold water in the en suite, and Dick sits on the bed looking at his own hands, fingering the domino mask thoughtfully.  “I don’t think Zatanna really needs to know… all this. You can apologize to her without having to say this in front of everyone.”

“Yes,” Bruce agrees, softly.

“But, in private, you should talk to the others. The ones who—you know. You should have this conversation with them.”

“Do you think they would understand?”

Dick grimaces, and shrugs. “Maybe not at first. They might not understand what you feel, or what you don’t feel. At first, it’ll feel like you’re breaking up with them or something.”

“Hm.”

“And then, when they start really thinking about it sympathetically, it’ll hurt more that you let them have their way with you without telling them that they were harming you. It’ll hurt more that… that you didn’t trust them.”

“This is starting to sound worse and worse,” Bruce says, mildly.

Dick giggles. “You still should do it. You’ll all be better off for it in the end. You’ll be able to… find new ways to be intimate in a way that’s more fulfilling for everyone.”

“As an aside,” Bruce murmurs, “you really know too much about my sex life. Please… stop knowing these things. It’s weird.”

Dick lets out a snort. “I’m a grown man; I can survive the mental trauma,” he says, and then frowns. “Which,” he continues, “by the way…”

“What is it?”

“You need to understand that… I don’t feel the way you do. About these things.”

Bruce stops, with his cowl halfway up. He takes a moment to interpret the sentence.

“I like the attention,” Dick continues, and his face is turning a bit pink. “I like what Zatanna said. I don’t… my point is just, you know. My honor doesn’t need protecting.”

He looks up at Bruce, nervously, and he waits for Bruce’s reaction.

Bruce tries to keep his face impartial, and he puts on the cowl fully, and he nods. “Alright,” he says.

He thinks, well, it’s probably the sort of thing that will always make him uncomfortable, like watching Dick pull off stunts as Nightwing without a cape to slow his descent.  And if Dick doesn’t feel like he’s being harmed by… these things… then he probably is fine, and Bruce can keep his protests locked up in his throat like all the other things he can never say.

Dick smiles, and replaces the domino mask. Nightwing claps a hand on Batman’s shoulder as they exit the room.  It’s a touch that doesn’t make Bruce feel trapped, or cornered, or uncomfortable.  It’s just Dick, and affection, and a promise that… he won’t be alone, when they face the League again, and things will turn out alright.

**Author's Note:**

> hey please comment if you liked this, and what you liked about it. if you want to write a work inspired by this work, go ahead! just link back to this one. thanks for reading.
> 
> talk to me on [my tumblr](http://mitzvahmelting.tumblr.com)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Important](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14697195) by [naasad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/naasad/pseuds/naasad)




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